


Gotham's Best Chef

by SnappedFemur



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Chefs, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, One Shot, Out of Character, Short & Sweet, its more about the food than the characters lmao, well it's my first work period lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22850293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnappedFemur/pseuds/SnappedFemur
Summary: "I mean…why don't I just cook for you?"———The one where Victor Zsasz flexes his ability to make a great meal for his man
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Victor Zsasz
Comments: 6
Kudos: 141





	Gotham's Best Chef

**Author's Note:**

> Recently I've had a friend stay over who has been to culinary school, and I helped cook a dish with her the other night! So my inspiration was essentially  
> Victor + Cooking = :^)
> 
> so yeah, enjoy

" _Ew_ "

"What, boss?"

"This food is fucking _disgusting_." Roman complained as he threw the napkin from off his lap onto the table. Victor looked down at his plate and prodded carefully. 

His boss was right. The food did look pretty fucking gross.

Roman spat out whatever he had leftover from the meal onto his plate and motioned around the display.

"It tastes like fucking _roadkill_ , and there's a hair?" He gasped incredulously as he lifted the stray hair from the piece of meat before him. He slammed his fist down.

"I pay a shitload of money to these fuckers so they can serve me fucking- raccoon meat? With _hairs_ in it?!" He is visibly upset as his fists clench and his hair starts to fall from its perfect position atop his head. Victor sees the warning signs of an incoming tantrum and gets up to massage his boss's back. He kneeds his hands into his shoulders and calmly shush's Roman.

"Want me to kill them for you?" Victor says lowly into his ear, a smile emerging on his face. Roman scoffs and turns to look at him, "What? No, I'll just fire them and find some other fucking chefs who can do their _actual_ fucking job." He finishes with a grimace. Victor frowned. The day had already started off rough enough when a deal Roman was trying to close went south in his bar earlier. Fortunately for Victor, that meant he got to work on a new technique for face peeling. Unfortunately for Roman, that meant that it only took one small encounter to set him off the edge. Victor eases from off his shoulders and lets his hands rest there for a moment, feeling Roman's muscles become less tense under his touch. His hand slides down his arm as he goes to sit on the table next to Roman's plate.

"Why go through all the trouble?" Victor starts, pushing the plate with his unoccupied hand. Roman's eyebrow quirks up and he rolls his eyes.

"Fuck, if you want to kill them, go ahead, I don't care, I just want some good fucking food for once." He groans as he lets his head fall into his palms. Victor thinks for a second; slowly getting off the table to squat next to the older man.

"I mean…why don't I just cook for you?" He asks, looking up at Roman. The older man moves his hands from his face and shoots him a confused look.

"No offense, Zsasz, but you don't look like the type of guy who went to culinary school," Roman jokes as he goes to sit back up. Victor follows his movements and rises,

"I learned a thing or two here and there." Victor states vaguely. 

"I'm gonna be honest, that's not really helping your case, buddy."

"You'll see," Victor says as he saunters away towards the kitchen. Roman looks on quizzically as the Russian slips into his apartment kitchen and gets to work.

As the assassin opens the fridge and looks for what he can work with his eyes immediately set on the ribs in front of him. He grins and pulls it out the fridge, a recipe from years ago starting to spring into his head. His mother and him would cook together at a young age, and it's some of the only remaining memories he's had of her since their accident. But it doesn't bother him too much. He goes deeper into the fridge and pulls out a blood orange, bacon, carrots, onions, and vegetable stock and sets it all on the counter. He looks around toward the wine rack further behind the kitchen and inspects the red wines he sees.

"Be careful with those, they're imported from France," Roman states from across the room, eyeing Victor carefully. Victor acknowledges this and selects an aged Bordeaux from the rack, cleanly swiping some cognac and tequila from the shelf as well as he places the drinks on the counter.

"Jesus, you trying to make me drunk, Zsasz?" Roman laughed. Victor smirked, "This is for the food," he says as he opens the tequila bottle. He holds it up,

"This is for me." He finishes. Roman lets out another laugh as Victor gets started with his recipe.

He starts by chopping up all his vegetables skillfully. He's spent years working with knives so he makes quick work during his prep stage and moves on to the main course; getting a cast iron pan and putting a generous amount of water on it. He lays down strips of bacon on it as he turns up the heat. He lets the bacon sizzle and cook down as he chugs a little more tequila, rolling up his sleeves; flashing scars and sections of burnt skin. He used to get a lot of injuries on accident messing with stoves and flambéing when he was younger, but now he gets them on purpose.

After a couple minutes the bacon has reduced to a nice crispy texture, and the fat pops deliciously in the pan. He places the bacon aside and starts to sauté the unattended vegetables. Roman can hear the cracking and sizzling on the pan. He sniffs the air.

"My _god_ , that smells great already! You're more than you seem, Zsasz, I'll give you that," He says astonished, starting to turn his body to face Victor more. Victor's heart starts to beat a little quicker and he perks himself up a bit more.

"Thanks, boss" he smiles and continues to cook the vegetables. After they start to get the nice caramelized brown color, he removes them from the pan, leaving some fat behind for the rest of the dish to use.

Victor cracks his neck and starts to season the ribs. Running his fingers over the cold meat, he lets his mind wander to good memories of the other times he's felt ribs like this before breaking them one by one. For Roman, of course.

Once the ribs have been seasoned, he tosses them into the greased pan and lets them cook until they have a nice brown color. The scent emanating from the kitchen starts to make Roman's mouth water, he gets up and walks over into the kitchen, now intrigued by Victor's cooking methods.

"Oh, that looks great, I'd just eat it right now-"

"It's still raw, and I haven't even gotten to the best part yet." Victor interjects. Usually, he wouldn't cut off his boss, but when he was in the zone and working he tended to forget things like that. Roman's eyebrows quirked up but he let the comment slide, reaching for the opened red wine and taking a swig.

The ribs were browned by now, so Victor moves the pan off the burner and removes the ribs, carefully placing them in a pot. He swoops the cognac off the counter and douses the ribs in it. Roman watches intrigued. Victor looks in some kitchen drawers and finds a long lighter, which he uses to then light the ribs on fire after the pot has been placed back on the burner. The flames roared high and singed off some of Victor's arm hair, but he liked the heat. Roman gasped and clapped, backing away slightly,

"Marvelous, Victor!" He said, a hand resting on Victor's shoulder. The russian felt heat rush to his face, not from the fire, but from the fact that Roman used his first name this time. He felt more important than usual, and was now determined to make this meal the best he could for Roman because he loved his boss more than anything in the world.

After adding wine, vegetable stock, the leftover cooked vegetables, he placed a cover over the pot and let the liquids boil with the ribs. When Victor turned around to take another swig of tequila he was met with an enthusiastic Roman Sionis.

"Well, you're certainly more than meets the eye, Victor, I'll tell you that," He starts, turning his gaze over to the pot.

"Tell me, what exactly is it that you're making?" 

"Oh, well, that's easy boss, I'm making flambeed short ribs with a blood orange gremolata," Victor states simply. Roman blinks.

"Sounds complicated. Yet also delicious." He grins, now rubbing the assassins shoulders. Victor nods.

"I learned the recipe from my mom when I was younger. She taught me a lot about-"

"So when will it be ready, then?" Roman interrupts. Victor pauses, but answers anyway, "Probably in about 20 or so minutes. It's gotta simmer for a while."

" _Oh_ , well, get me when it's done then, I'm gonna go get some more botox done- my face has been feeling kind of loose these past couple days…" He trailed off, walking away already. Victor sighed, gripping the tequila bottle tighter before he chugged way more than he should've.

\----

"Hey, boss-"

"What, I- what, what is it, what do you want?"

"Food's done."

Roman's eyes snap open and he launches up, shoo'ing away his private dermatologist.

"This had better be fucking worth it, I'm starving right now." He mumbles as he goes to sit back in the dining room. Victor goes to sit on his right side and smiles as Roman looks, impressed, at his plate.

The ribs were sitting in a beautiful presentation on the white plate and it smelled absolutely _fucking_ amazing. Roman's mouth watered slightly.

"Well, what are we waiting for! Let's just eat!" He says, chuckling as he finally gets to take a bite of the food that his friend had prepared. 

"Oh my god, Victor," Roman moaned through the bite. Victor liked how that sounded.

"It tastes fucking amazing! _You_ , my friend, are such a wild card!" He laughed as he continued to rip the meat from off the bone. A smile creeped up on Zsasz's face as he watched Roman compliment his cooking skills more and more.

"You're lucky you're a great assassin or I'd have you moved to head chef!" Roman said, licking his fingers of the juice leftover from the dish.

Victor just grinned.


End file.
